dumfries-1920/04-069

Transcription

INVENTORY OF MONUMENTS IN DUMFRIESSHIRE.

men. And after that we caused the pieces to be laid to shoot at the doore of the steplee
which was a house hight (i.e. one "room" or "house" above the ground floor),
and that house hight rampered with earthe, and caused them further to myen."
And then the captain about 4 p.m. took down his "pensall (flag) of defyaunce" and
he and his men "cried for marcie." So they surrendered without conditions, and
the captain, "a tall gentleman," with his fifty-seven men came out and delivered the
"kies." On Tuesday morning we "cutt and raiced down the churche wallis and
steplee, and brent the towne, not leving any thing therin unbrent; which was the
best town in Anderdaill." ¹
The capture of Lochwood (No. 315) in the same year was a more humiliating
affair, but the account contains several references of structural interest:- "We came
there about an hour before day; and the greater part of us lay close without the
barnekin: But about a dozen of the men got over the barnekin wall, and stole close
into the house within the barnekin, and took the wenches and kept them secure in the
house till daylight. And at sun-rising, two men and a woman being in the tower,
one of the men rising in his shirt, and going to the tower head, and seeing nothing stir
about, he called on the wench that lay in the tower, and bade her rise and open the
tower door and call up them that lay beneath. She so doing and opening the iron
door, and a wood door without it, our men with the barnekin brake a little too soon
to the door; for the wench perceiving them, leaped back into the tower, and had
gotten almost the wood door to, but one got hold of it that she could not get it close
to; so the skirmish rose, and we over the barnekin and broke open the wood door, and
she being troubled with the wood door left the iron door open, and so we entred and
wan the Loghwood; where we found truly the house well purveyed for beef salted, malt,
big (i.e. barley), havermeal (i.e. oatmeal, cf. German hafer, oats), butter and cheese." ²
Of the furniture of these residences only the structural constituents remain
in ornate chimney pieces, such as the early one at Comlongon and the Renaissance
examples at Spedlin's, Amisfield, and Caerlaverock; the stone-silled recess - buffet
or cupboard - at Amisfield, and the late Gothic stone cupboard or buffet, which
was shelved, at Comlongon; as well as various smaller aumbries and lamp-recesses
throughout. The cutting off of one end of the hall at Comlongon to form a kitchen
is a feature paralleled in Elphinstone Castle, East Lothian, and the towers of Law and
Fairlie on the Firth of Clyde. At Spedlin's are indications of the position of a screen
and gallery in the hall, and in the second floor at Amisfield are the last crumbling
traces of the brightly coloured design which formed a frieze below the patterned
corbels, while the room below still bears some of its plaster cornice. It happens,
however, that an inventory of the contents of Caerlaverock Castle was made after
its surrender in 1640, the main features of which may be briefly described.
The bulk of the furnishing is in beds, many of them "canaby" or canopy beds,
trunks and chests, some having locks, cupboards - apparently of various types,
as one was "lead our with gould lace," - chairs and stools. Besides those in other
rooms there were three beds in the "hich wardrop" and three in the new "wardrope,"
four in "Sanders" chamber, a canopy bed in a drawing ("draing") room, and a
falling bed as well as a "burd" or table in the "daning (dining) rume before my
lady's camber." In fact there were taken ³ from the castle five beds richly equipped

1 Scottish Papers, i. No. 42.
2 Cited in the History of Westmorland and Cumberland, Nicolson and Burn, vol. i. p. liv.
3 "Intromettit with" by Lieut.-Col. Home on the plea that the conditions of surrender had been
broken.

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